Women, feminism, and geek culture

Wednesday Geek Woman: Mikki Kendall, activist and author

Mikki Kendall, activist and author. Photo courtesy Mikki Kendall.

Mikki Kendall is a writer, pop culture critic, editor and author.

In 2009, she started Verb Noire, a small press for genre fiction featuring characters that are people of color and/or LGBT. In 2011, her first story, “Copper For A Trickster,” appeared in Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories. She’s been a panelist at WisCon, Arisia, and Readercon, and been a guest on the Nerdgasm Noire podcast.

As of last month, she has a new story out! Content warning for violence and sexual violence, but if you’re able to do so you should really check out If God Is Watching. It’s a gorgeously-written period fantasy about a young woman with an unusual power, and anything else I tell you about it would spoil its awesomeness so seriously just go read it.

Though she’s a talented fiction writer, she’s better known for her incisive cultural criticism on issues relating to race and gender. in August 2013, she started the #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag–a home for honest criticism of the ways white feminism has failed at intersectionality and repeatedly thrown women of color under the bus. The tag picked up steam until it was globally trending.

Together with Jamie Nesbitt Golden, she started Hood Feminism, an intersectional blog about race, gender, and misogynoir (the toxic brand of explicitly anti-black misogyny). They’ve leveraged Twitter to keep that conversation going with hashtags like #FastTailedGirls and #DangerousBlackKids.